


molten on the linoleum

by sundowns



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Argentina, Character Study, M/M, the au where oikawa plays for japan in the 2020 olympics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-21
Updated: 2020-08-21
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:15:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26024821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sundowns/pseuds/sundowns
Summary: With the compulsion of clawing into the first string of the Olympic Team, Oikawa comes across ordeals between distinguishing blood from sweat and defining the means of thrusting his boundaries to where it’s impossible—determination or demons involved.whiplash!au
Relationships: Iwaizumi Hajime/Oikawa Tooru
Comments: 3
Kudos: 45





	molten on the linoleum

**Author's Note:**

> i've been working on a bokuaka fic but i feel like i'll die if i don't write about iw*o*.

In the summer of 2017, his first meeting with the Argentine Olympic Volleyball Team comes in a flurry of hushes brought by Juan Gomez.

Renowned ace of the century, notoriously dubbed hard to please and hard to get by, cutthroat by critique. Refined bearing in his two-meter glory, poise not to overlook. By introduction, Gomez stands firm, perpetual intimidation a thriller, and Oikawa is starry-eyed by the platform.

“Have you heard? He never gives compliments.”

“He won’t budge even if you stick your head up his ass.”

He gets to shake his hand and doesn’t mind the firmness of it when he gives Oikawa an expectant smirk.

“Newbie?” _Yes, sir!_ he responds, way too enthusiastic. It radiates eagerness and the undertone speaks hunger. “Nice. A foreigner. Must have taken you a whole gut to leave home.”

“I can’t wait to play with you. I’ve heard a lot of things about you,” he tells Gomez, because it’s the customary greeting to fuel up the esteemed, and Oikawa will swallow his pride if it meant he needs to kiss his ass to get to his good side.

“I am hoping they are great things.”

“Definitely!”

Gomez makes a resounding laugh but he shakes his head and pats Oikawa’s shoulder. “Then you gotta earn it, man.”

* * *

Oikawa draws the first compliment from Gomez on a practice match with Serbia.

“ _Bueno_. Like that projectile.”

“Thanks!”

So, Oikawa does it again. He does it like electric adrenaline flows through him and his veins are copper wires, again and again until Serbia snatches the next point.

Gomez clicks his tongue. “Wrong projectile. Again.”

Salvio receives the ball, it makes a perfect landing into Oikawa’s fingers then flies up into the air. But Gomez’s hand misses it.

“Off timing. Again.”

The next one comes through. They earn the point but Oikawa’s breath stops in his throat when Gomez charges at him without touching. His eyes are wide and blaring red signals and Oikawa’s soul almost departs from him completely.

“Hey, foreigner. Expect me to constantly breathe down your neck until you perfect the timing. _Again_.”

“S-sorry.”

“Are you stuttering?”

Oikawa sharply exhales, determined, and nods. “Sorry.”

The game pauses, all eyes are on them, but Gomez is far lacking the tact to give two shits about the whispers surrounding him. Oikawa’s ears are still ringing when he gets out of his face and points to their libero. “Salvio, your receives are shit.” And Oikawa takes an indirect offense, because if there’s anyone else who exceeds the likes of Nishinoya Yuu or Yaku Morisuke, it’s Salvio himself. “Spikes with me tonight or go home and play with your neighbor’s kids in your fucking backyard.”

* * *

“No wonder Argentina’s constantly aiming for first place. They’ve been number one since the beginning.” Oikawa is drying his hair when he unintentionally overhears on passing foreign benchwarmers by the locker room. They’re talking in English on a level he can decently understand.

“Way to talk shit about your home country.”

“But I mean it! Have you seen him? Gomez is the Atlas of the AVF. They’d be nowhere without him. The coach doesn’t even have a fight on that guy, he knows all the shit.”

* * *

In the opposite gym from Salvio’s and Gomez’s spike-receive practice, Oikawa builds a makeshift paraphernalia to perfection.

He drags two poles, attaches a plastic twine on both ends to Gomez’s jumping height. The goal for the night is to have the ball’s tangent reach the exact 364-cm vertex.

By eleven, Oikawa goes and pushes the farthest of his boundaries until he scrapes the calluses off his tapeless fingers. The ball goes too low, the ball goes over the rope, the trajectory is ninety-nine percent into perfection. _It’s still not perfect_. By one, he showers in his own sweat and the stinging of his hangnail messes with his stance. He’s on the threshold of berserk, he nips at it with his teeth until it’s comes off bleeding. Then the sting goes away when he pounces his fingers on the ball. Blood flicks on leather, fabric, and linoleum. Zero degree projectile, then gravity sends it back to his forearms. It flies back upwards, then bounces off his fingertips. There’s a centimeter difference from the plastic twine. It’s ninety-nine percent perfect, but it’s not perfect. _Off timing. Wrong projectile. Faulty parabola._ It’s just not quite there. _Again_. _Again_.

“Shit.” He balls his fist, and the hangnail splits. _“Fuck!”_

There’s no budge in Oikawa’s progression until it’s three fifteen. He’s finally caught the vertex just right—not higher, not lower, never 0.01 cm off. _Just right. Perfect._ His fingers are vibrating, a bruise forms inside his thumbnail, but he gains a new kind of vigor for another night.

He doesn’t stop by five, _a hundred and thirty-three over two-hundred tosses successful_ , and doesn’t go to sleep until it’s an hour due to call time.

When Oikawa does the perfect vertex into Gomez’s palm, minus the off timing, minus the wrong projectile, borne by compulsion, a fucked up sleep cycle and a drive to excellence, he gets a hard clap on the back and a pleased “ _Bueno_!”

* * *

It rings in his ears for the remaining day, buoyed up by a news of playing as the first string setter for tomorrow’s practice match with Chile. He splurges his night at the gym and doesn’t slither to the confines of his room until two in the morning. It’s two in the morning, but he gets sleep.

* * *

Thirty minutes into commencement, he gets switched as a benchwarmer to a newbie from Turkey.

“What the hell?”

“The fuck did you just say to me?”

“You told me I am tossing today.”

“Yes, I did, and now you won’t. Ylmaz, over here!” Gomez gestures the newbie and he jogs towards them. Oikawa eyes him from head to toe. “Mister rookie right here is playing with me. You’ll sub him.”

Heat rushes to his face, not from rage, not from embarrassment, but from exhaustion. He’s only reciprocated by a friendly wave of the hand.

“Yesterday, _you_ told me _I_ am playing!”

“And science told me yesterday is different from _fucking_ tomorrow, Sherlock.”

“Alright. Warm up,” the coach announces.

“Got complaints?” Gomez tells him and jabs his thumb. “Door is to your right.”

“No,” he replies, deadpan, and plops his duffel bag on the bench.

Oikawa finally stops brooding when the coach puts him in on the second half of the final set. Even with how he practiced four times as much than everyone else, he can’t decide for himself whether it’s all he gets or not.

When he runs for his service ace, it makes a bad hit on his palm. He should’ve known that will put him to shit. All the blood in his body clears out when the trajectory of the ball makes a land on the back of Gomez’s head. They all jump in surprise and it’s as if someone dropped a bomb and suddenly it’s quiet.

Gomez sighs, tongue rolling inside his cheek, and he’s slapping the sore spot with his hand while looking at Oikawa with a dead stare. _He’s pissed_ , to put it short. It might have been the most terrifying he’s ever seen of him, and he knows _fight_ is never even put as an option. He’d rather be prepared for _flight_ than pee in his shorts.

Gomez doesn’t attack him physically, but his words are a huge blow to his ego that he almost collapses standing.

“Sometimes I just don’t get why you’re here, Oikawa. Why are you here?” he walks towards him. The game has paused. Oikawa remains rooted on the spot, unable to speak. “Coming to a foreign country for what? You can’t even deliver a proper serve.”

“I’m very sorry,” Oikawa mutters, eyes down. “I will practice hard.”

“What’s that? I can’t hear you.”

“I’m sorry,” he voices louder.

Gomez shakes his head. “No, no. They can’t hear you, Oikawa. Tell them what you want to say.”

He is close to tearing up at this point and the sympathizing looks he gets from people embarrasses him to the point of either wanting to disappear or die. Oikawa Tooru has never been put on this spot even once his life and he wants to disintegrate into the ground.

“I’m sorry! I will practice hard!” he exclaims, even if he has to force it out of his mouth, even if he’s not sorry at all, and even if he practices hard until his nail beds are donned in grime and blood. _Really, fuck this guy,_ he hears Salvio mutter from the side before he offers him an encouraging smile.

“ _Bueno_ ,” Gomez nods and pats him on the back.

* * *

_“Oikawa. Finally.”_

Oikawa clips his phone in between his ear and shoulder, wringing his fingers. “Hey, Iwa-chan, uh... how are you?”

_“Good. You? What are you doing?”_

“Just... taking a rest.” _Lie._ He’s not taking a rest. It’s twelve AM and he’s still at the gym, covered in sweat and anxiety.

_“Do you have something to say?”_

“Yeah... I was thinking, uh, I’ve been thinking about this for days and I’ve told everyone else also.”

_“What is it?”_

“Iwa-chan, you have every right to be mad at me after this, alright?”

It’s clear how Iwaizumi is taken aback with how he sputters before responding. _“Oikawa, what the hell is it? You’re making me nervous.”_

“I—uh. It’s nothing big, I just—” Oikawa looks around like he’s about to commit a desecration and bites down his lip until his teeth digs into the skin and frees the taste of copper.

_“Oikawa.”_

He lets out a heavy sigh. “I just think we shouldn’t talk anymore.”

_“...what.”_

“It’s been busy,” he explains and his voice begins to raise in defiance. “ _You’re_ busy. I’ve been practicing nonstop. There’s no time. I’ve been missing your calls, _everyone’s_ , I can’t even look at my phone anymore for days.”

_“...so you’re cutting off your communication with me.”_

“Yeah.”

_“...and you think it’s not a big thing.”_

“...yeah.”

_“...and you told everyone off.”_

“I guess.”

_“Hold up, Oikawa... you know I’m not pressuring you into replying to my messages, right? You could do it a month later and I wouldn’t mind. I’d understand you, but this? Completely cutting the communication off? I just don’t understand.”_

“Iwa-chan, you would understand.”

 _“I wouldn’t,”_ Iwaizumi insists.

“Yes, but you would look back and you would think I was right, eventually understanding m—”

 _“I wouldn’t. Alright? I wouldn’t!”_ Iwaizumi exclaims in frustration, voice shaking and Oikawa’s hands begin to quiver as well. _“Oikawa, be clear with me. Did I do something wrong?”_

“Iwa-chan, don’t think that. We know you didn’t.”

_“Then, what the fuck is wrong with you?”_

“There’s nothing wrong—”

_“Don’t fucking lie to me! Fuck you!”_

“Did you just curse at me?” His voice cracks, because even though Iwaizumi has told him that hundreds of times, it’s the first he ever says it as if he’s condemning him to hell. “We’re miles apart with overdue time since we last saw each other and you’d fucking know I’m lying to you?”

 _“Like we haven’t been together for two fucking decades?! What the fuck are you?”_ Iwaizumi blurts and there’s overt perplexity and open frustration. He’s sounds so, _so_ confused it’s physically painful. _“I don’t like it when you’re like this.”_

“There was never anything to like!” Oikawa exclaims, immediately stopping. He drowns in his heavy respiration and feels a piece of himself fall off. “I’m tired of everyone telling me to take care of myself! It makes me homesick and I’d get distracted, I don’t want to rest! And the Olympics... I need to get to the fucking Olympics! I need to be great!”

 _“And you’re not?!”_ Iwaizumi yells back. _“Oikawa, calm the fuck down and shut your mouth.”_

“Iwa-chan, _stop_. We shouldn’t talk anymore.”

 _“I never liked it when you were like this, but I tolerated it. But this,_ fucking _this, like there’s no remedy. Fuck—”_

“Stop _talking—_ ”

 _“No,_ you _stop talking.”_ Iwaizumi cuts him off. With the next words he utters, he’s already calmed down, but he’s somber and confused and pained and Oikawa knows he will beat himself up for hurting him. _“You know, I was never throwing a fucking tantrum when you’d wake me up at four AM on a deadline just so you could call me out of nowhere. And I’d still be willing to listen to you.”_ And it’s like Iwaizumi shot him through the signal; Oikawa can’t take it, but he’d rather fester in the guilt of pushing him away unharmed than in the guilt of deliberately killing him while he watches Oikawa dismantle himself into wreckage. _“Do you think I don’t get homesick like you do? Everything else has moved on, maybe you have, and I also have, but I never pushed you away.”_

Oikawa moves the phone away from his face and sniffs.

_I know and now, you have to. Because what I feel, what I am, and what I make of myself is contagious to you._

“Hajime, you need to take care of yourself.”

_“For what, Oikawa?”_

“We need time.” _For you._ “Please. You’ll understand me.”

 _“You’re right. Maybe we shouldn’t talk. Not until you feel better.”_ Iwaizumi finally gives in and Oikawa’s face scrunches as he holds back a sob. _“So feel better. Don’t come crying to me when everyone in your new set of friends leaves you—”_

“N-no, what made you think this is about _new friends_ —”

 _“I’m tired. You know it’s more than that. Don’t call me anymore.”_ A boomerang hits him right there and it comes with the taste of his own medicine. Oikawa opens his mouth, then gets disrupted before he can even eat his words and take it all back. _“You’re right. I think we shouldn’t talk. Even if never in a million years I will understand this.”_

He is left hollow when the line cuts.

* * *

Oikawa brings a battalion of his demons to the gym past the unholy hours of midnight and plunks an 8-oz water bottle exactly an inch away inside the baseline. The goal is to knock the bottle ten consecutive times before he forgives himself for doing a shitty job today.

Yet he should’ve known it’s easier said than done when his palms have now become red, swollen, and quivering after missing a hit on his ninth venture on the nineteenth attempt. It’s eighty percent accomplishment and he’s tired. _But it’s not quite there. Not perfect at all._

“Fuck this,” he wheezes and he’s not sure how close he is to pulling his hair out. _“Fucking hell!”_

_Coming to a foreign country for what?_

_Off timing._

_Wrong projectile!_

His labored breathing mixes with the voices in his head. All his body is asking him for is to sleep and just forget about anything.

_So feel better._

He inhales deeply, exhales just as much, and grabs for another ball. _One more time._ He visualizes Gomez’s face as the whole floor and pummels the ball on it until the booming sounds are deafening.

“Alright. Again,” he tells himself. “And feel better.”

Whoever wonders why Gym 4 is never quiet even with the lights off will remain a mystery and a horror to some. Oikawa’s blind fixation lasts him until birds are calling for him to _fucking stop_ and he’s cross-eyed from focusing too much.

Because on attempt number fuckever, the sunrays have peeked through the glass windows and he’s one hit away from finally achieving his goal.

_One more. Ninety percent._

_You’re close._

“Be better.”

The ball is thrust upwards, thirty degree projectile, and it hammers perfectly on his palm.

Leather cracks and leather cuts through, skin emancipates blood, distinction remains in numbness. Oikawa plods to the enemy’s side, bottle flung into the abyss of success and now gone into the chambers of one-sided triumph. Under the droplets of crimson red, the linoleum breaks.

_Wrong._

_Be the best._

His smile is sinister when he thinks.

There it is. _The perfect service ace._

* * *

Everyone’s gaze is on him the next play and it’s an understatement that he is showing off. There are heavy dark bags under his eyes and the whites have now turned red, but who really gives a flying fuck. He’s past the stage of taking offense with whoever comments on his appearance, and he could care less as long as he’s not dead. He proves his several night’s hard work by a service ace of vehemence, obsession and a ticket to mortality, ready to pestle anyone who ever gets in the way into smithereens. He delivers and takes in everyone’s choked gasp by the violence of it.

The ball is out, but his eyes are wild and his grin feral when the ball chips the linoleum.

What happens after that is history. All that’s known is he earns the position as starting setter for Argentina’s next international match.

* * *

With whatever good fortune happens to him beforehand, Oikawa should’ve known this day is about to fuck him over.

The engine to his drive malfunctions ten minutes into call time, and he doesn’t wait for the godforsaken mechanic to fix his luck before he’s running the hell out of Buenos Aires. He’s only less than two kilometers away; he can make it if he tries hard enough. Even if that will cost him a limb. _He just needs to make it_.

 _“Oikawa, where the fuck are you?”_ The asshole calls him when he ascends the overpass. _“Call time is nine, I’m subbing you out!”_

“Yeah, like hell you will.”

_“The fuck did you just say?”_

_Does he really have to explain it to him?_ “I’m playing today as setter. That’s my position.”

_“And who the fuck are you to decide whether you’re setter today or not?”_

“Coach told me last week!” A pedestrian crashes into him and he swears when his phone jumps out of his hand and drops faceground. _“Shit.”_ He gapes in horror as it slides to a distance where it’s out of reach and it tips into the railing, just a centimeter push further for it to finally fall. He almost gets stomped over when he clambers for it in the sea of people walking by. It’s got a broken screen now.

_“—lo. Hello?!”_

“Hello? Hel—I’ve been practicing nonstop, you can’t sub me out!”

Gomez scoffs. _“You really think Coach makes the decisions for this team, Oikawa? How old are you?”_

“I’ll be there in ten— _no_ , five. I’m almost there. Look, I’m running!”

_“You better fucking be.”_

He’s a minute late now, but the stadium is within sight for him to finally feel relief. A weird surge of adrenaline possesses him and he’s running much faster, limbs contracting and lungs in a vice grip. _Almost there. Almost perfect_. _Ninety-nine percent_.

He descends for the destination, or he thinks otherwise for doom, until his ankle betrays him and he’s tumbling over a flight of stairs. There are concurrent _oh no!_ s as he ungracefully makes his way down. People are gasping. He’s turning heads everywhere. He’s not sure what broke but he knows blood is dripping somewhere from his head, his knee is screaming in pain, and his wrist is hurting like a motherfucker. A man calls out for him. _Are you okay, sir?_ He’s not okay. So he stays on the ground to ease a blackout, blind for a bad ten seconds and cursing his life for whatever misfortune it had to expel, and then he remembers that time is running and he doesn’t care if he’s limping with a fucked up ankle or a hip split crosswise. He needs to play. _I own that part. It belongs to no one but me._

“I—I, yeah… I’m okay—just let me—” he searches for his phone then gets on his feet with the help of someone. He doesn’t look at the face. He doesn’t need to. _Sir, please settle down. I’m calling the ambulance_. He doesn’t need an ambulance. He just needs to get to the fucking stadium. “That’s fine. Sorry, I got a match in nine so—” Then he goes off, not looking back, hobbling on a bad leg and half-dead, but he’s about to get there.

“Hey. Sorry, the bus broke down.” He announces to the team when he arrives, casual and far from bothered like there’s no crimson red on his cadet blue uniform. Gomez’s face falls into shock, much like how his co-players halt on their spikes and digs to gape at him. “So, are we warming up now?”

“Oikawa, warm up started seven minutes ago. What the hell happened to you?!” Coach charges at him with a raged but disoriented look. “ _Warm-up?_ In that state? You’re not playing today!”

“I’m perfectly fine! It was only a bunch of steps and I got a few scratches.”

“What the _hell_ , Oikawa? What happened?” Ylmaz has that look where his eyes are about to pop out, and it’s clear that he’s the most disturbed out of everyone else. “You’re going to die if you—”

“Shut the fuck up, Miles Walton! I’m setting today!”

Then it’s Gomez who finally enters the scene. Oikawa winces when he bunches his fists on his collar and grabs him up. “Listen, you fucker. If you mess this up, I’m kicking you out.”

It’s good in the first set, the _best_ even, for someone whose wrist is swelling into combustion. The red circling his wrist now seems like an accessory of fortune if you don’t look too close. He subs out in the next set, the coach insisting Ylmaz take his position, and feels that blasphemous satisfaction when they lose by three points. It’s not about Argentina and Brazil anymore; it’s about him and his fixation to the demise of everyone in his way.

The scoreboard blares 1-1. By the third set, it’s where things start to take a nosedive. The bandage falls off his wrist from a bad receive and the swollen muscles have now maturated into his bones. His ankle is about to rupture if he so as takes another step. It’s messing with his tempo, and every toss executed is always _not quite there_. He doesn’t give a fuck about who’s giving him the bad eye or the worried stare. He just works on it.

It’s the final rotation and Oikawa gets the chance to win over a matching point. He lets rebukes pass from one ear to another when the coach yells for him to sub out, and focuses on the enemy in front of him. Cyber yellow or cadet blue. _Everyone is an enemy he needs to prove._ So he will prove it to them— _the perfect service ace—_ born by compulsion to perfection, a fucked up sleep cycle, and relationships in reckless abandon.

The ball flies up. Thirty degree projectile… and he runs for it, jumping over the white line and pounding it into destruction. The leather does not crack, the leather does not cut through, he is screaming in agony after the delivery and his wails echo the stadium shameless.

_“FUCK!”_

People are gasping, he’s turning heads, he doesn’t know if his wrist has snapped in half, or of his tendon finally came off, but it hurts, _it fucking hurts,_ and he wants to mangle someone near. He is curling on the court while cradling his hand, has a thousand eyes on the disaster he created so marvelously. The medics are rushing forward but he panics and quickly scrambles to his feet. Ready again into the game. _He doesn’t need an ambulance._ He just needs to win.

But the whistle blows and the crowd roars. The scoreboard blares 2-1 with Brazil in favor.

“Motherfucker,” Gomez fumes and pins him into the locker door post-match. “You _fucker,_ it was _your fault!_ ”

Oikawa is finally not having it. If he has to mangle someone, it’s got to be him.

“Fuck you.” Oikawa slaps his hand away and lets his wrath fuel him into propelling the fucker into the opposite door. His back crashes the metal and it rattles loudly.

“Fuck—get off me!”

“ _I’ll fucking destroy you._ I’ll fucking destroy you until you’re begging and you’re gonna have to wish you were dead, _”_ he seethes in pure anger, eyes wide and red veins evident from his tear ducts to his sclera. He pummels Gomez a punch once, twice, then three times, another after another until he doesn’t know how to count and his knuckles are the next things breaking; it’s the last conscious task he can do before his insanity consumes him and he’ll ultimately kill him into oblivion. _“Fuck you, Gomez! Fuck you—you fucking motherfuck—I’ll kill you—”_

“H-hey, man—you two stop it—!”

Marcelo and Ylmaz break them off and they’re still clawing at each other even as their coach arrives.

“The fuck are you doing?!”

Oikawa detonates in straight Spanish, unfettered curses and a flurry of vulgarities delivered without accent like it’s his field of perfection. It’s a sight of violent sandstorms. It targets no one and everyone at the same time.

“You’re out,” the coach tells them. Oikawa’s pained breathing is loud in the tense silence (maybe his ribs broke), and he doesn’t have to second-guess who he’s referring to.

He runs without leaving another hurricane. Things are flinging, he’s pacing back and forth, the apartment’s a mess. His rage festers into something he will thank himself later, and he finally knows what to do.

* * *

In sixteen hours, he’s at Iwaizumi’s door in Irvine. Iwaizumi is at sea and his hands are trembling when he welcomes a wreckage. Comprehension far from working and brain sagging by a thread. Oikawa stands there, frayed Seijou teal over crisp crimson red overtaking a once spotless cadet blue. He doesn’t speak for a while as Oikawa collapses in his arms and tells him recurrent _sorries_ and _sorries_ and _sorries_ to last a night.

“What happened to you?!”

“I just want to go home.”

“Oikawa, this is USA,” Iwaizumi asks him, eyes bleary and perplexed. “Why the hell are you here?”

“I don’t know. I honestly don’t know,” he sniffs, shaking his head as he burrows his face to Iwaizumi’s shoulder. His entire system malfunctions and he just _doesn’t want to_. “I don’t know anymore. I just want to go home. _I want to go home._ ”

“I’m here. You’re safe.” Iwaizumi wraps him with his arms warmly, not minding the tears and stains that soak dirty into the clean shirt he’s wearing. “I’m sorry,” he says, letting him in again, even if he never really understood anyway.

* * *

_“He sustained injuries and had to go get several stitches. You should’ve seen how his face swole, like he was stung by a wasp or some poisonous shit. You skewed his jaw, so he’s gonna look a little different by the time you see him again.”_ Oikawa winces when Ylmaz tells him by FaceTime a year later. He’s now in his apartment with Iwaizumi in Tokyo, taking a rest and receiving therapy, and he actually doesn’t know how to react to that. _“You might be wondering why he didn’t sue you; he knows that’s going to strike him twice fold. You know that fucker.”_

“What do you mean?”

_“He’s received charges of verbal assault and psychological abuse before. That’s going to cost him a career.”_

“You’re too brave for staying.”

 _“Nah. You were the only person who had the balls to punch the living shit out of him. He deserved it.”_ Oikawa snorts. _“But Oikawa, for the sake of inner peace, I think you should sue him.”_

“As much as I want to, I won’t. Tell him he makes sure he’s in good shape instead. I still have to beat him twice as hard in the Olympics.”

Ylmaz makes that usual wheezing laugh that Oikawa finds funny. _“That’s the spirit, brother.”_

“Thanks, man. And I’m really sorry.”

_“Of course.”_

“Will I see you in two years, maybe?”

_“You bet.”_

“Then!” He exclaims and Iwaizumi glances at him from the _genkan_. “I’m going to destroy you, Miles Walton.”

When the call ends, Iwaizumi plods towards him in the couch. “Who’s Miles Walton?”

“The dude from Turkey.”

He hums before planting a smooch on the crown of his head. “Ah, the one you were salty over.”

“Shut up! We’re friends now!”

“Hmm. Is that so...” He plops beside him and lifts his right forearm. “How’s your wrist?”

“Better than ever. I’m left with last two appointments now.”

“Good job.”

Oikawa grins and scoots over to catch Iwaizumi’s lips in a kiss to which he responds eagerly. They go on like that, just stagnant but keen, until Iwaizumi is hovering and pressing him against the couch while he’s seated, his head flanked by his arms as he goes deeper and the kiss more languid. When his lips head southwards and he nuzzles his jaw with soft hot pecks, Oikawa gives him a suggestive stare.

“Sexy time?”

Iwaizumi snorts and quickly pulls away. “No, it’s _your turn to clean the fucking bathroom_ time.”

* * *

In the 2020 Summer Olympics, his first meeting with the Argentine Team resets from two years ago. He’s there—refined bearing in his two-meter glory, poise not to overlook. Gomez stands firm, perpetual intimidation a thriller, except Oikawa doesn’t look up to him anymore.

He’s half a head shorter than Gomez, but that doesn’t stop him from leveling his gaze with his as he initiates the handshake. Besides his asymmetrical face, there’s a deep scar below his left eye, at the apex of his cheek, and Oikawa remembers their last interaction after that god forsaken match with Brazil. Gomez gets the upper hand and Oikawa’s face twitches at the grip that sends his metacarpals grazing.

“I’ll destroy you today, you little shit.”

“The game hasn’t even started yet and you’re already crying? Now don’t go bawling to your mamá when your gold gets stolen.” The table reverses and Oikawa sees that flick of discomfort on his face when he reciprocates with force close enough to pulverize concrete. It’s enough not to injure him; that would be a blow to his pride.

 _Fuck you,_ he mouths before they separate.

  
  


On the opposite sides of the court with the eight feet net separating crimson red and cadet blue, the whistle blows to commencement. The service from Argentina hurtles, speed close to a colt pistol bullet, and feet begin to shuffle.

* * *

“Will you be alright?”

“It’s like you don’t know me or something,” Oikawa snorts, inching closer on the bench until he’s in Iwaizumi’s reach by waist. “Kiss me.”

 _Anything to keep everyone fired up_ is always the coach’s addendum to a pre-match mental conditioning, so Iwaizumi obliges, never finicky, and tips Oikawa’s chin to kiss him. They are in the locker room alone and could care less on who barges in on them; the others must be somewhere else than close. It’s natural the way Oikawa melts and grins in between playful bites, and he crawls to his lap. Knowing him, he always needs to be pleased but he’s easily pleased when it’s Iwaizumi, and between them, everything is all about as simple as surrendering.

“Don’t underestimate me.”

“Just checking up on you,” Iwaizumi murmurs, too tired to argue, and trails feathery kisses along his jaw to the joints of his shoulder. He shivers under his hands and Iwaizumi inhales him—his scent is mint and coconut vanilla and passion and the ache for vengeance. Simultaneously seething and tender. Simmering and lenient. Firm and vulnerable. Iwaizumi loves him in this state, so he gives it to him, all that keeps him fired up, and he gives all of himself.

“No sex,” he warns Oikawa when things begin to take on a different turn. They’re both huffing and red. “Twenty minutes until call out.”

“Excuse me, mister. I didn’t safeguard this uniform for weeks for it to be soiled over,” Oikawa harrumphs, climbing off him. “Though it would be an exception after I get gold.”

“Conceited,” Iwaizumi remarks and whacks his ass on the way out. “Then go get gold.”

* * *

In his homeland, Oikawa reigns than follows, he governs than be under, and he is regal than he is proletarian. He commands by movements, shouts by glowers, and they perk up by signals. His tosses come graceful as much as his serves catastrophic. Nimble performance over careful execution. Concurrently systematic and haphazard. Coherence coinciding chaos. And his team finishes what he starts.

People will never understand Oikawa Tooru when Oikawa Tooru is on court. There is always catastrophe in his ordered movements.

And then there’s also him in his vulnerable bearing, not an opening to self-destruction but from the urge to listen to his body when his heart is lithe.

He orders for a timeout just so he can kiss Iwaizumi in their huddled team circle.

“Energy. Need energy.”

“You fucking stink.”

Oikawa grins and playfully licks Iwaizumi’s firmed mouth. “Love you, stinky.”

Sakusa pales, stepping outside the circle. Miya to his front gags. “Y’all gross.”

* * *

On a match point in the final set, his ace blows through eyes and heads, over the net and the sea of stares. A _pang_ as loud as gunshot and speed as swift as colt pistol bullet. Leather cracks and leather cuts through, skin emancipates blood, distinction remains in numbness. Oikawa eyes the enemy and throws them right into the chambers of fluctuant triumph. The whistle blows, the crowd roars, the linoleum breaks. Oikawa remains pinning Gomez with a stare.

The rage that festered in him comes in the form of an Olympic upshot.

And his mouth hitches upwards.

The ball is in.

**Author's Note:**

> so, a week ago i was watching whiplash (2014) and while observing andrew neiman i immediately thought, _yep, that's oikawa_ , and sorta tortured him out of impulse. sorry.
> 
> im @ [sund0wns](https://sund0wns.tumblr.com/)!


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